Psychology
essay
History of technology
We’ve always been distracted
Worried that technology is ‘breaking your brain’? Fears about attention spans and focus are as old as writing itself
Joe Stadolnik
video
The future
What’s the healthiest way to handle a creeping feeling that the world is ending?
15 minutes
video
Social psychology
Social contagions can cause genuine illness, and TikTok may be a superspreader
10 minutes
video
Technology and the self
One woman prepares for the risky solitude of Georgia O’Keeffe’s American West
8 minutes
video
Work
Catch those idle moments of connection between coworkers on a smoke break
10 minutes
video
Technology and the self
Adaptive technologies have helped Stephen Hawking, and many more, find their voice
5 minutes
video
Values and beliefs
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years
9 minutes
essay
Technology and the self
Help! Brain overload
As tasks mount up, our brain’s ability to juggle goes down. Neuroergonomic tactics can relieve the cognitive burden
Emily Willingham
video
Gender and identity
How the spy-cam epidemic in South Korea affects the women who are its victims
35 minutes
video
Mood and emotion
Close-ups on the night of anticipation in the 2020 US presidential elections
6 minutes
video
Technology and the self
‘Perfection is for the gods,’ and this sculptor gets to a thousandth of an inch of it
14 minutes
video
Technology and the self
When an AI rejects him for life insurance, Mitch wonders if he can escape his fate
7 minutes
essay
Sleep and dreams
Inside your dreamscape
Dream-hacking techniques can help us create, heal and have fun. They could also become tools of commercial manipulation
Adam Haar Horowitz, Robert Stickgold & Antonio Zadra
video
Consciousness and altered states
‘Meditation without meditating’ might be possible. Can it also be made ethical?
9 minutes
essay
Neuroscience
The warped self
Social media makes us feel terrible about who we really are. Neuroscience explains why – and empowers us to fight back
Mark Miller & Ben White
essay
Neuroscience
Am I my connectome?
Each human brain possesses a unique, intricate pattern of 86 billion neurons. If science can map it, immortality beckons
Phil Jaekl
video
Future of technology
Tech companies shroud their algorithms in secrecy. It’s time to pry open the black box
4 minutes
essay
Future of technology
How vulnerable is the world?
Sooner or later a technology capable of wiping out human civilisation might be invented. How far would we go to stop it?
Nick Bostrom & Matthew van der Merwe
essay
Technology and the self
The problem with prediction
Cognitive scientists and corporations alike see human minds as predictive machines. Right or wrong, they will change how we think
Joseph Fridman
video
Technology and the self
How an augmented reality app transformed London into an immersive art gallery
6 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
The body as mediator
The phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty entwines us, via our own beating, pulsing, living bodies, in the lives of others
Dan Nixon
essay
Technology and the self
Zoom and gloom
Sitting in a videoconference is a uniformly crap experience. Instead of corroding our humanity, let’s design tools to enhance it
Robert O’Toole
video
Teaching and learning
A retired teacher embarks on a mission to find out what became of a beloved student
16 minutes
video
Technology and the self
A handful of executives control the ‘attention economy’. Time for attentive resistance
4 minutes